Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Toe Pick!

00:00:00.000 Hey all, Jo here. In celebration of my intense love for the Winter Olympics, I am bringing

00:00:12.500 back one of my most favorite episodes that I have ever created. This was in season one

00:00:18.460 of Committed, back when I was a baby podcaster. I mean, I still had no idea what I was doing.

00:00:25.300 And yet this show is just so lovely and so incredibly sweet.

00:00:31.420 And the story that I'm about to share with you today is absolutely fantastic and so apt for this week.

00:00:39.360 This week when I have really been doing nothing but watching figure skating, big air snowboarding, bobsledding, skeleton, biathlon, and yes, lots and lots of curling.

00:00:52.720 I've gotten very into curling.

00:00:54.260 In fact, we're going to take the kids curling this weekend, and everyone is strangely psyched

00:01:00.680 about it.

00:01:01.520 They are.

00:01:02.340 We also rewatched the movie Cool Runnings last weekend, and man, it was a hit.

00:01:09.600 It really holds up.

00:01:11.180 I had forgotten that John Candy is the coach in that movie, and it's just, it's peak John

00:01:17.580 Candy is what it is.

00:01:18.880 and the best thing is that I mean first off the movie's sweet and it has such such a great moral

00:01:25.140 about perseverance and seeing things through but it got my kids so into bobsledding so much so

00:01:32.920 that I might actually let them use the scrap wood in the garage to build a bobsled this weekend

00:01:38.220 yeah I know might keep them busy for a couple hours so that I can watch some more curling

00:01:43.560 or, or my personal favorite, the figure skating. Which brings me to today's episode. Yes,

00:01:51.820 we have a pair of married figure skaters. Chris and Alexa Kniram shared the same dream

00:01:59.240 when they fell in love and got married. They wanted to go to the Olympics and they wanted

00:02:04.180 to do it together. And they didn't let broken bones or a mysterious illness get in their way.

00:02:11.360 Their love story is amazing. It is so sweet.

00:02:14.280 And yes, this episode is called Toe Pick because The Cutting Edge is clearly, clearly one of my favorite romantic comedies.

00:02:21.880 In fact, my friend Casey and I are going to watch it this weekend, maybe with the kids,

00:02:27.060 and maybe just curled up on the couch together with some mimosas.

00:02:30.260 Doesn't that sound great?

00:02:32.220 Okay, guys, enjoy this episode.

00:02:34.740 Toe Pick. Toe Pick.

00:02:40.480 i'm a total olympics nerd and a figure skating fiend i've even come around to ice dancing

00:02:58.280 as a kid christy yamaguchi was my spirit animal and one of my favorite movies of all time

00:03:05.280 the cutting edge db sweeney man would i love to see you play hockey

00:03:11.080 Moira Kelly.

00:03:12.200 Any day.

00:03:15.780 The Cutting Edge.

00:03:17.980 If you haven't seen it, and I'm sad for you that you haven't,

00:03:22.400 it's the quintessential figure skating romantic comedy. 0.63

00:03:26.240 A diva figure skater named Kate Mosley, 0.97

00:03:28.920 brilliantly played by Moira Kelly, 0.82

00:03:31.440 pairs up with a down on his luck and not so bright,

00:03:34.220 but very handsome hockey player named Doug Dorsey.

00:03:37.840 And together they go for the gold.

00:03:40.240 in the Olympics.

00:03:42.620 They do this insane move in the movie

00:03:44.640 called the Pamchenko twist. 0.83

00:03:47.000 I don't even think it's possible in real life. 1.00

00:03:50.000 We're doing the Pamchenko. 1.00

00:03:52.460 What? 1.00

00:03:53.820 Oh, you heard me.

00:03:55.300 You think I'm doing all this to get a program out of you?

00:03:57.560 You want to win, don't you?

00:03:59.740 No, it's no good, Kate.

00:04:01.240 It's too dangerous.

00:04:02.660 And we agreed.

00:04:04.020 We're putting it in.

00:04:07.740 And at the end of the movie,

00:04:08.980 they get it done.

00:04:10.240 in the Olympics.

00:04:13.300 But that's where the movie ends.

00:04:15.380 You never know if they won or not.

00:04:17.780 It drives me crazy every time I watch it.

00:04:21.260 I want them to win.

00:04:23.260 I want their dreams to come true.

00:04:25.620 Can they really achieve love and an Olympic medal?

00:04:29.480 Well, there's actually a real-life example.

00:04:33.800 Chris and Alexa Kinirim.

00:04:35.440 Our next competitor is representing the United States of America.

00:04:39.780 Alexa Semecka Kinirim and Chris Kinirim.

00:04:43.460 Chris and Alexa are a pair of professional figure skaters

00:04:46.460 who met on the ice, got married,

00:04:49.300 and together dreamed of going to the Olympics.

00:04:53.260 And we got to talk to them about it.

00:04:58.300 I'm Jo Piazza.

00:05:00.920 This is Committed.

00:05:09.140 So guys, I promised myself that I would refrain from making too many cutting edge references in

00:05:35.100 this interview but i should just probably apologize ahead of time for that topic thank you

00:05:41.980 that's exactly what i wanted to hear and we could just cancel the rest of the interview now

00:05:46.360 don't even need to do it yeah that movie's a classic to be fair chris wasn't a has-been hockey

00:05:54.420 player and alexa wasn't a spoiled brat rich kid figure skater with an attitude problem

00:06:00.340 This is real life, not a romantic comedy after all.

00:06:05.280 But the two of them did meet on the ice.

00:06:08.200 And they did share the same dream.

00:06:11.320 That dream was a really big one.

00:06:14.400 It wasn't just about one person.

00:06:16.820 It was, I wanted to go to the Olympics, Alexa wanted to go to the Olympics,

00:06:19.840 and we wanted to get each other to the Olympics.

00:06:22.700 But let's back up just a little bit to when they first met in 2012.

00:06:26.040 Chris had been skating since he was 12 years old

00:06:29.680 And trained seriously with three different partners

00:06:32.260 But he was starting to look for someone new

00:06:35.260 At the same time, Alexa was moving to Colorado Springs

00:06:39.420 Where Chris was training

00:06:40.320 His coach, Delilah Sappenfield

00:06:43.100 Brought them together for a week-long tryout

00:06:45.140 Delilah had a pretty good feeling about the two of them

00:06:48.200 As soon as I picked her up from the airport in my Camaro

00:06:51.560 We got off talking

00:06:54.660 and there was great conversation and I guess I couldn't shut up and normally I am not a big

00:07:01.220 talker. From there we had a you know we had a great connection with each other. Alexa was just

00:07:06.300 21 when they met. A five foot two blonde, wide-eyed like a woodland elf. Chris was a little

00:07:13.420 older, 25, with dark hair and the bone structure of a Disney prince. I knew we had a connection

00:07:20.520 from the moment we met but also things were fresh and exciting because uh we're in a tryout for a

00:07:27.020 new partnership so there's kind of like this honeymoon stage that partners go through when

00:07:31.380 they team up with somebody new getting used to a new skating partner is like the beginning of

00:07:38.220 any relationship the time when you're still googly-eyed and jelly-kneed over the other person

00:07:43.800 you're like the best version of yourself a version of yourself you probably don't even

00:07:50.140 recognize. Alexa said it took a few weeks for them to act like normal people around one another.

00:07:56.600 But even then, even when they stopped pretending to be perfect all the time,

00:08:00.980 they were still kind of into each other and more than just his skating partners.

00:08:07.160 Originally, our coach had asked us if we were dating and we kept telling her no,

00:08:12.440 but she knew Chris so well because she had coached him for so many years before I moved there

00:08:16.940 that she knew something was going on.

00:08:19.700 They finally had to break the news to Delilah

00:08:21.920 that they were pretty serious.

00:08:23.800 They were dating,

00:08:24.960 and they wanted to continue skating together.

00:08:28.660 And here's the thing about the skating.

00:08:31.640 Chris and Alexa weren't just good together.

00:08:34.260 They were really good together.

00:08:36.980 Maybe even great.

00:08:38.740 They won a gold medal

00:08:39.940 at their first international event in 2012.

00:08:42.160 Number one, representing the USA, Alexa Sivka.

00:08:47.980 She was on the scene for us, teamed up earlier this year on the Grand Prix.

00:08:52.640 First Grand Prix event for them.

00:08:54.880 But it wasn't exactly easy.

00:08:57.680 Dating the person you're working with, competing with, spending all of your days with.

00:09:04.940 Here's Chris.

00:09:06.260 And with Alexa, you know, if she's having trouble on a throw,

00:09:09.780 Maybe in our first year, I would really get upset at her.

00:09:13.240 It was hard to separate the skating work life from the home life.

00:09:18.480 There was a learning curve on how to talk to one another on the ice while we were working,

00:09:23.040 so nothing came off as a personal attack or hurt each other's feelings.

00:09:28.520 There are plenty of days where it's hard for Chris to skate with a happy-go-lucky attitude.

00:09:34.060 Just like most of us, he's just trying to get through the day.

00:09:37.380 sometimes his back hurts

00:09:39.960 sometimes he doesn't even want to be there

00:09:42.400 sometimes his throws are terrible

00:09:45.060 and when the person throwing you in the air

00:09:47.920 doesn't feel like throwing you in the air

00:09:50.040 that can be a problem 1.00

00:09:51.520 most couples can ignore problems 1.00

00:09:56.740 most couples can push them off to the side

00:10:00.100 and let them fester 0.99

00:10:01.160 Chris and Alexa have no choice

00:10:03.960 but to talk about them

00:10:04.940 right away

00:10:07.080 With the communication, you know, Alexa would say, I'm just frustrated with the throws.

00:10:12.340 It's not you.

00:10:13.280 Don't take anything I do personally.

00:10:15.080 I'm not trying to attack you.

00:10:16.300 I find that Chris and I are more successful when we state what we think is the obvious,

00:10:21.860 but the other person might not pick up right away.

00:10:24.020 So for instance, it's a Wednesday morning and I'm tired, sore, and I would really just

00:10:29.700 rather be in bed, but I know I have to train and make progress.

00:10:34.320 it helps the working relationship if I just state that up front so Chris doesn't think that

00:10:41.620 I'm mad at him or there's something wrong. Stating the obvious and recognizing that your partner

00:10:48.560 isn't messing something up intentionally to hurt you is good advice, even if you're not a

00:10:53.900 professional figure skater. It's the kind of chicken soup for the soul advice that is actually

00:11:00.140 true, that you start to realize when you've been with someone for a while. Chris and Alexa had to

00:11:06.040 realize it really quickly. If he's making a lot of mistakes that day, or if we're just not clicking

00:11:13.860 in our unison while we're skating, he's not doing it on purpose because we share the same dream.

00:11:18.980 After the first year of kind of that roller coaster of emotions of trying to learn how to

00:11:23.540 work with one another, we kind of figured it out. When they say they figured it out,

00:11:28.420 they figured it out.

00:11:31.400 They won a silver medal at the U.S. Championships in 2013,

00:11:35.060 and then they finished ninth in their first world championships that same year.

00:11:42.060 Well, the crowd's certainly enjoying that performance

00:11:45.100 from Alexa Schnecka and Christopher Kinnearum,

00:11:48.900 one of the three U.S. pair teams that is eligible to defeat at Worlds.

00:11:54.220 Alexa Schnecka and Christopher Kinnearum.

00:11:58.420 And I think by that reaction from Alexa, everyone understands exactly how she feels about that last performance.

00:12:05.460 Well, that was very solid.

00:12:07.520 I mean, that was a great performance, and especially from a team that hasn't been together for that long.

00:12:12.040 Nine months?

00:12:12.960 They look like they've been together longer than that.

00:12:15.880 They were still a new team, but they were going places.

00:12:20.060 They were even considered in contention for the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

00:12:26.120 But then Chris broke his fibula.

00:12:29.080 He had surgery that required a metal plate and nine screws be put in his ankle.

00:12:34.940 Chris and Alexa's dream of getting to the Olympics had to be put on hold.

00:12:40.080 Let's take a minute for a quick break here.

00:12:42.740 When we come back, we'll hear about how Chris recovered and how they ended up walking down the aisle.

00:12:47.080 Alexa stuck by Chris

00:12:59.040 as he recovered from his broken leg

00:13:00.600 and in 2015

00:13:02.440 they were back on the ice

00:13:04.040 winning their first national title

00:13:06.280 setting record scores

00:13:08.420 in both the short program

00:13:09.640 and the free skate

00:13:10.520 they also became

00:13:12.840 the first American pair in history

00:13:14.620 to perform a quadruple twist

00:13:16.660 in competition.

00:13:18.700 This is the move that's like a more realistic

00:13:20.940 version of the Pomchenko

00:13:22.760 twist. It's been reported on

00:13:24.660 a lot, but the opening element

00:13:26.640 is that quad twist.

00:13:28.460 No other team will be doing it.

00:13:30.480 If they hit it cleanly, they'll be raking in

00:13:32.660 the money.

00:13:35.040 Watch for the stretch

00:13:36.360 in Chris's arms if they're all the way straight

00:13:38.620 and watch for the catch on her hips.

00:13:42.100 They did a 1.00

00:13:42.520 beautiful one in practice.

00:13:45.300 Whoa!

00:13:46.660 How do you top a quad twist in competition?

00:13:51.940 Well, you ask someone to marry you.

00:13:57.260 Chris asked Alexa, and of course she said yes.

00:14:00.740 But together they asked their coach, Delilah, to marry the two of them, to be their officiant.

00:14:06.720 After all, she was the one who got them together in the first place.

00:14:11.200 You know, we had asked her.

00:14:12.540 We actually brought her over to our house and we got a cake for her and wrote on it.

00:14:18.240 Will you marry us?

00:14:20.640 So it took her a moment.

00:14:23.260 It took her a second to figure it out when she was reading it.

00:14:25.960 But that was really special to us.

00:14:27.860 You know, she was the person that got us together.

00:14:29.860 She had seen the ups and the downs of all of our training.

00:14:33.520 She was like a second mom to both of us.

00:14:35.680 So we really felt like she was the perfect person to officiate our wedding because she

00:14:40.880 helped get us together and she helped keep us together. They got married in June 2016 at a

00:14:46.560 golf club in Colorado Springs with an amazing view of the mountains. Figure skating brought

00:14:52.260 them together. It was impossible not to have it at the wedding. The cool things about our wedding

00:14:58.760 when we planned it was we tried to incorporate as much of our skating career that we could.

00:15:03.960 We had a little ice skate boot and a blade separate, and we mounted the boot and bleed together to show like a unified skate, kind of like how people do those rituals.

00:15:15.640 We made up our own.

00:15:17.960 We also had our first dance to Unchained Melody, which is a piece that we have in our free skate music that we used at the Olympics, just a different version.

00:15:28.060 So that was very special.

00:15:29.340 As newlyweds, their eye was still on that same dream

00:15:33.980 The Olympics

00:15:35.620 And now they were hoping to get to the 2018 Winter Games

00:15:40.540 In Pyeongchang, South Korea

00:15:54.260 They were on the right track

00:15:55.680 They were winning all the right things

00:15:58.420 They were a definite fan favorite. 1.00

00:16:01.280 And then Alexa got sick. 1.00

00:16:04.080 Really sick.

00:16:06.320 The doctors had no idea what was wrong with her at first.

00:16:10.340 She had frequent vomiting that would last for 10 to 12 hours.

00:16:14.640 She was in debilitating pain and could hardly eat or drink.

00:16:18.820 At night, she couldn't sleep.

00:16:22.060 The pain would just wake her up again.

00:16:23.780 she described it one day by saying that brushing her teeth was more difficult than any long

00:16:30.940 figure skating program she'd ever performed you know i think at the beginning when alexa first

00:16:37.580 started getting sick there was just a lot of questions as to what was going on because we

00:16:43.000 would go see doctor after doctor and get this x-ray and this scan and nothing would happen and 0.95

00:16:48.640 Alexa would be sick. Then she could go skate for a couple days and then be sick again. 0.99

00:16:53.520 So at the beginning, it's just like you're just wondering what's going on and hoping that it's

00:16:57.680 not anything too serious. That was a hard part of our lives, and we really had to lean on one

00:17:04.020 another. And it really tested our marriage, even though the hardest part of our relationship in the

00:17:10.840 few years that we were together was faced only a couple months after getting married.

00:17:15.280 We started withdrawing from competition.

00:17:18.220 Instead of making it about him and kind of vocalizing his lack of training or skating or missing out on the Grand Prix, he never mentioned it to me.

00:17:28.680 He only wanted to do what was going to help me get better.

00:17:32.520 And that was huge because it helped me not feel as guilty for causing us to not skate.

00:17:38.040 Did you feel guilty?

00:17:39.800 I felt guilty the whole time. 0.96

00:17:41.020 but alexa's a fighter and on the days when she felt even a little bit of strength

00:17:47.460 she'd go to the rink and try to skate it was never equivalent to what we needed to actually

00:17:54.600 progress and i felt bad and i felt sorry to be taking his dream away from him but she wasn't

00:18:01.880 taking his dream away from him chris's new dream was a life with alexa no matter what that had to

00:18:08.920 look like. I took skating out of the equation. I really didn't think about it too much. I would

00:18:15.780 have withdrew for everything. You know, I would have been fine being done skating because at that

00:18:22.360 point it wasn't about skating. It was about Alexa living. Alexa was eventually diagnosed with a rare

00:18:29.520 life-threatening gastrointestinal condition. She underwent three different abdominal surgeries to

00:18:35.300 try to correct it. It was a huge relief finally being able to figure out what was going on and

00:18:42.420 get her into surgery, knowing that now she's going to be okay. And whether it takes us a year

00:18:49.560 or two years to get back on the ice, it's not going to be a big deal.

00:18:54.660 After the surgeries, Alexa weighed only 80 pounds. She had lost her muscle and body mechanics. 0.98

00:19:01.760 Chris had to hold her up because she wasn't even capable of standing.

00:19:06.980 But Alexa was committed to making small progress every day.

00:19:11.220 She began by walking around the rink, just once.

00:19:15.860 And each day she could go a little longer, and a little longer after that.

00:19:21.300 When she was finally ready to get back on the ice, she asked Chris to help her.

00:19:26.320 Eventually she was able to step on the ice.

00:19:28.500 She couldn't skate on her own, so I was just holding her hands and scooting her around the ice

00:19:33.740 so she could at least feel that she's moving forward.

00:19:37.820 And, you know, the dream of being able to skate again was not lost.

00:19:42.360 The doctors told Alexa that she would be back to normal in six to eight weeks.

00:19:47.560 Back to normal for a regular person means they can go get groceries or go to Starbucks, walk the dog.

00:19:54.860 But Alexa wasn't a normal person. 1.00

00:19:57.540 She was a professional athlete.

00:19:59.640 And the Olympics were less than two years away.

00:20:03.240 Let's take a quick break here,

00:20:04.880 and then we'll find out about what happened to Chris and Alexa's dream.

00:20:17.860 After the six to eight weeks, Alexa was back to being normal. 0.96

00:20:21.940 She then had to, you know, start from scratch, basically. 1.00

00:20:26.300 to build her body up to being an elite athlete.

00:20:29.880 Honestly, if I was in the same situation,

00:20:32.460 I would not have been able to do it nearly as efficiently

00:20:36.660 and as fast as Alexa was able to do it. 0.64

00:20:39.620 Her last surgery had been on Halloween night.

00:20:43.480 By February, Chris and Alexa felt ready to compete again. 0.99

00:20:47.860 When we first competed, she was just under 100 pounds, 0.69

00:20:51.440 going from having no muscle to enough to get through 1.00

00:20:54.620 a four and a half minute program with throws and lifts and twists and all these physical things

00:20:59.580 that normal people can't just go out and do. There needs to be training behind it was like

00:21:05.040 just such an inspirational thing for me to watch. A big reason we were able to pull our criteria

00:21:11.840 after nationals was what we did in February and in March. They placed sixth at the 2017

00:21:19.820 Four Continents Championship,

00:21:22.000 their first major competition since Alexa's injury.

00:21:26.200 At the 2017 World Championships,

00:21:28.920 they became the only pairs team to score over 200 points

00:21:32.040 for the United States.

00:21:33.960 In figure skating, that's a really big deal.

00:21:41.120 Lovely finish. 0.99

00:21:42.980 Throw triple flip.

00:21:43.780 You can see they're near to the lead.

00:21:51.380 They just got better from there.

00:21:53.640 At the 2018 U.S. Championships,

00:21:56.140 the Canerims won their second national title.

00:21:59.700 And then in January of 2018,

00:22:02.260 all their hard work,

00:22:03.720 all the sacrifice,

00:22:05.320 it paid off.

00:22:09.360 U.S. Figure Skating announced

00:22:11.000 that Alexa and Chris would represent America

00:22:13.060 in the Pyeongchang Games.

00:22:15.580 They were going to the Olympics.

00:22:18.420 Oh, well, I was speechless and I'm never speechless.

00:22:21.120 So that kind of speaks for itself.

00:22:23.700 I had like this moment when the scores came up

00:22:27.080 and I saw that we won

00:22:28.240 because I knew that our chances of making the team were high,

00:22:31.260 but it doesn't sink in until it's actually said and done.

00:22:33.940 And when we won, I just had this moment

00:22:36.640 where I finally felt like the pain

00:22:40.000 that I had felt so many times from being sick

00:22:42.600 and having episodes was worth it because, you know, my lifelong dream was being realized and

00:22:48.700 my family's sacrifices and Chris's family's sacrifices when he was growing up were all worth

00:22:53.600 it. So it was an unbelievable moment. I'll never forget the moment where it just kind of sank in

00:22:57.920 that my dream, our dream is coming true. Can we stop for a second and talk about what a big deal

00:23:05.260 that is? Millions of kids, including me, grew up with the dream of getting to the Olympics.

00:23:13.600 Thousands of people, not including me,

00:23:17.000 will train for their entire lives.

00:23:19.740 Only a handful actually make it to the Games.

00:23:23.800 It was time to go to Pien Chang.

00:23:27.540 Chris and Alexa would compete as a pair

00:23:29.760 in both the short program and the free skate,

00:23:32.240 but they would also be a part of the American team.

00:23:35.680 Alexa and Chris, 2015 and 18 U.S. champions,

00:23:39.980 Tenth at last year's world championships

00:23:51.220 Have been on the podium in the Grand Prix

00:23:53.620 And in that moment, they reached their goal.

00:24:15.460 They achieved their shared dream.

00:24:18.240 Alexa and Chris Kinirim were Olympic medalists.

00:24:20.640 they'd just help the Americans win the bronze medal for the team event.

00:24:26.320 It was on to the short program and the free skate.

00:24:30.720 Their routine will go down in history.

00:24:33.620 I personally think it's better than the final scene of the cutting edge.

00:24:38.380 See, on Valentine's Day, Alexa and Chris,

00:24:41.780 already American sweethearts,

00:24:44.080 became the epitome of couple goals 0.91

00:24:46.240 when they closed out their performance with a perfect kiss.

00:24:50.640 well can they recreate the superb short program from the team event skating to

00:24:58.340 Moulin Rouge come what may before every skate she looks him in the eyes and says

00:25:02.480 I love you still on their honeymoon

00:25:08.500 where's the kiss cam when you need it

00:25:12.660 The crowd in Korea went wild.

00:25:22.200 Oohs, ahs.

00:25:24.920 Instagram blew up.

00:25:27.840 Chris even presented Alexa with a handmade Valentine heart that read,

00:25:31.700 Will you be mine?

00:25:34.220 Hoda and Savannah talked about it on the Today Show the next day.

00:25:37.540 The Canerums did advance to tonight's free skate.

00:25:40.520 It'll be the fourth time they've skated in a week and their last time on the ice competitively at these Olympics.

00:25:47.860 Savannah and Hoda.

00:25:49.080 Well, we knew we loved them when they came on the set.

00:25:51.600 Oh, they were adorable.

00:25:52.740 Their love.

00:25:53.600 You just feel it.

00:25:54.600 Joe, thank you so much.

00:25:56.500 Guys, that was the kiss witnessed around the world.

00:26:00.560 And I have to ask, was it planned?

00:26:04.720 Was it staged?

00:26:06.660 Or are you two really just that adorable?

00:26:10.520 Well, when Chris and I compete, we kiss or don't kiss.

00:26:14.740 We just, whatever we feel the moment will do.

00:26:17.340 So the kiss on Valentine's Day, I mean, we didn't even think it's Valentine's Day, let's kiss.

00:26:24.100 I actually didn't even know, like, it was a big deal.

00:26:27.040 But what was cute was that the crowd in Korea was so, like, shocked by the public display of affection.

00:26:34.140 And they were, like, oohing when we kissed.

00:26:36.220 So I did it.

00:26:37.560 I had us do it one more time.

00:26:38.680 I know that Chris and I will have a hard time

00:26:40.820 topping Valentine's Day ever again

00:26:42.960 because, you know, we were living our dream

00:26:45.180 in that moment of being at the Olympics.

00:26:48.300 Just making it to the Olympics together as a couple

00:26:50.780 was Chris and Alexa's dream.

00:26:52.280 Third place, United States of America.

00:26:55.560 Summit, Eagle.

00:26:58.740 Team USA.

00:27:01.400 The bronze medalists.

00:27:04.040 And hearing them talk about everything it took

00:27:05.660 to get them there,

00:27:07.300 You can tell that it's as much about the journey for the two of them

00:27:10.360 as it is about the destination.

00:27:14.740 Their marriage makes their skating better.

00:27:17.620 And their skating actually makes their marriage better.

00:27:21.460 I think it's really strengthened our marriage.

00:27:23.900 We've had the same dream when we got together.

00:27:25.940 We both wanted to go to the Olympics.

00:27:27.580 We both wanted to be national champions.

00:27:29.140 You kind of have your separate dreams,

00:27:33.000 her coming into the relationship and me.

00:27:35.940 you have your separate things that you want. But as we grew together as a team,

00:27:40.640 our goals became one goal and it became our goal that we wanted. And, you know, we've both

00:27:47.600 wanted it since we got together and kind of learned how each other works and

00:27:53.580 our relationship grew. And with the, you know, with the us getting married, it grew even more.

00:28:01.580 So guys, I saved my most important question for last.

00:28:05.940 After successfully completing the Pamchenko twist 0.94

00:28:10.320 and clearly schooling the Russians,

00:28:13.420 do you think that Kate Mosley and Doug Dorsey

00:28:16.400 won the Olympic medal

00:28:18.460 and end up happily ever after?

00:28:21.740 Don't pick!

00:28:23.380 I don't know.

00:28:24.820 I'd say that they'd win just because it's such a great movie.

00:28:28.980 Me too.

00:28:30.700 Me too.

00:28:35.940 Writing and producing Chris and Alexa's episode

00:28:59.800 made me start to think about our own dreams

00:29:01.600 and how maybe we need some new dreams.

00:29:06.640 So I talked to Nick about it.

00:29:09.160 I'll tell you, I feel pretty supported.

00:29:11.420 You do?

00:29:11.960 In general.

00:29:13.220 We don't have an Olympic medal.

00:29:14.680 We don't have an Olympic medal, but did we set out to get an Olympic medal?

00:29:19.000 No.

00:29:20.060 What's our dream right now?

00:29:21.400 We don't have a shared dream.

00:29:24.300 Maybe we should write down our dreams.

00:29:26.260 I guess I'd have to think about that.

00:29:28.400 Let's make a list.

00:29:30.600 We're doing good.

00:29:31.500 We don't need a medal.

00:29:33.200 But we can get a medal.

00:29:35.000 We could.

00:29:35.500 They sell medals at the shop down the street.

00:29:37.120 I'll give you a medal, baby.

00:29:37.940 Okay.

00:29:38.680 Good night.

00:29:52.660 This episode was hosted and reported by Joe Piazza.

00:29:56.240 Special thanks to Alexa and Chris Kinnearum.

00:29:59.100 It was produced and edited by Ramsey Yunt,

00:30:01.200 with additional editing by Tyler Klang and mixing by Tristan McNeil.

00:30:05.500 The executive producers are Joe Piazza, Mangesh Hatikader, and Will Pearson.

00:30:11.360 Theme song and original music by Tristan McNeil.

00:30:14.040 With additional music by Kimiko Ishizaka, Pierce Murphy, TRJ Banks, Kevin McLeod, Peter Dudenko, Alpha Hydra, Lee Rosevere, Free Tim, and Josh Woodward.

00:30:28.600 For comments, suggestions, or to be part of the show, send an email to joe at committedpodcast.com.

00:30:35.360 That's J-O at committedpodcast.com.

00:30:39.420 Committed with Joe Piazza has been a production of the HowStuffWorks family,

00:30:42.620 produced in our studios located in Atlanta, Georgia.

00:30:45.420 You can grab a copy of Joe's book,

00:30:47.480 How to Be Married, on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

00:31:04.980 Thank you.

00:31:34.980 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - February 12, 2026

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